Few would argue that the phrase “less is more” applies in matters of finance.

Generally, when we receive less money than we were expecting, we’re left with a salty taste in our mouths.

Such was the case with the City of Natchez’s recent funding issue with the Judge George Armstrong Library.

Last month as the city’s budget was finalized, library officials learned they would receive roughly the same amount of city funding they had received the previous year. But they were under the impression that since the value of a mill had increased since the previous year that the library would receive more money.

As is the case in many issues involving money and poor communication, tempers have flared, and perhaps rightly so.

This issue shouldn’t have caught anyone by surprise if all sides were communicating clearly with one another.

That said, however, the issue is over and we need to look forward.

Economically, governments — especially local and state — tend to lag behind the rest of the economy. The belt-tightening that the nation’s business community was forced to do in 2009 is just starting to really hit local and state government.

And it’s likely to get tighter in the coming months as programs that have been artificially bolstered up by stimulus funds see those funds expire.

The cuts announced by the library so far, while certainly not easy to make, may be among the best options.

The world is changing and all businesses and entities are quickly retooling themselves and restructuring their operations to change with the times. While painful in the short run, such changes can be excellent in the long run as the entities — such as the library — will wind up being more nimble and more in tune with their customers than before.